“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” Proverbs 29:25
Has there ever been a time when you feared someone else’s opinion? If you’re not sure, think about this: Were you ever embarrassed or made to feel terrible by someone’s side comment? Were you crushed when you found out somebody didn’t accept your friend request on Facebook? These are just a couple of examples that reveal whether or not we fear the opinions of others. Fearing others can be devastating in our efforts to live for Jesus.
We live with either the fear of God or the fear of man. It’s impossible to live fearing both God and someone else at the same time. Whom we fear determines what we do and how we live.
The fear of man is a vision without hope, and it turns us into false prophets seeing only a bleak and dreaded future. This type of fear is about not getting what we want, getting what we do want but losing it, or getting what we don’t want.
The answer to the fear, or dread, of man is the fear, or respect, of God. That means that we are not to live our lives afraid of what others may think of us or do to us. Instead, we are to live in awe and reverence of God alone. In other words, rather than fearing man, the Bible commands us to have a healthy fear of God. This means we care more about what he says than what others say, and we serve him tirelessly, knowing that he will reward us for being faithful. Paul affirmed this, commanding us to work “not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord,” (Eph. 6:6–8).
Read
- Whom, or what, do you fear?
- What does having the fear of man do in our lives?
- What are we promised if we trust in the Lord?
Prayer
If anyone in your family has expressed fear in his or her life, pray that God will show your loved one who he is in their life and deliver them from that fear. Thank him that we are safe in Christ.
This devotion is adapted from the Who Do You Think You Are? Study Guides with Daily Devotions resource.
